EVENTS 2023
READINGS FOR AFTER THAT
September 13, 7pm

Munro’s Books in Victoria

October 11
Calgary Wordfest

October 20, Poetry Bash
October 21, Reading on Family and Time

Vancouver Writers Fest

November 16, 17 & 18, 7:30pm
Special guest with
Barney Bentall & the Cariboo Express
Mary Winspear Centre, Sidney, BC

December 1, 7:30pm
Planet Earth Poetry
A featured reading with Arleen Paré
Russell Books, 747 Fort St, Victoria

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Poetry Out of Silence: Writing Retreat with Lorna Crozier at Wintergreen Studios
June 11 to June 17, 2023
Wintergreen Studios South Frontenac, Ontario
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ABOUT AFTER THAT
From Lorna Crozier, the poet that Ursula Le Guin called a “truth teller” and “visionary,” comes this new collection of soul-stirring poems that follow the death of a loved one.

After That is a book written from the dark hollow we fall into when we lose those we love. Lorna Crozier’s sure poetry finds the words to engage with the grief that comes from the death of her partner, the writer Patrick Lane, whom she’d lived with for forty years, many of them tumultuous. With grace and precision, she illuminates sorrow. The light the poems cast travels far enough to reach anyone who has experienced loss. These pages engage us with many familiar yet magical things—not only paper wasps, but their libraries; not only herons, but their role as aging monks. Crozier takes us through the domestic and natural worlds into the cagey and metaphysical place we call the beyond. Without offering false comfort, the poems turn over our own grief so that we can catch a glimpse of the new life inside us again. (From the Penguin Random House website.)
NEWS
SEPTEMBER 2023
Penguin Random House to release Lorna Crozier’s new collection, After That.
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SEPTEMBER 2021
Through the Garden a finalist for the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. Winner to be announced on Sunday, October 3, 2021 at an online gala. Free tickets click here.

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“Crozier writes of a world of imperfection, clumsiness, violence, betrayal, pain, and in spite of everything, delight and love….Always accessible, Crozier speaks a language we understand, but she uses it to tell us things we don’t.”
Canadian Literature
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Crozier's “Carrots” named one of Canada's Most Memorable Poems by Literary Review of Canada

THE CALL: POETRY OUT OF SILENCE with Lorna Crozier
An invitation to write. Explore the craft of poetry with one of Canada's most beloved and accomplished poets. Course is through Wintergreen Studios. COMPLETE DETAILS CLICK HERE.
• Start and stop whenever you like; the course never expires!
• 12 units with over 10 hours of video shot on site at Wintergreen Studios
• 7 extended instructional sessions led by Lorna Crozier
• Short exercises embedded throughout
• 4 extended prompts (“calls”) to try on your own
• Downloadable resource packages
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Lorna Crozier reads as part of Planet Earth Poetry’s Poets Caravan. More than 40 poets from across the CRD are featured.
Lorna Crozier was featured at Planet Earth Poetry, reading from Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats).

Read Lorna Crozier's article at Toque & Canoe
WHAT THE GARDEN HOLDS
A travelling poet reflects on wonder and loss.

Through the Garden is a finalist for the 10th Annual Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction

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THROUGH THE GARDEN
For details and to buy e-book and audio book visit Penguin Random House Canada. Hardcover available at link above, as well as at your local independent bookstore. The audio book is read by Lorna Crozier.
A powerful, deeply affecting portrait of a long marriage and a clear-eyed account of the impact of grief, writing as consolation, and the enduring significance of poetry from one of Canada’s most celebrated voices.

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when a poem
is about to nudge its way into life, when it’s pausing on the border between silence and being, it’s as if the whole body has grown antennae. Rumi writes, “You’re in the body like a plant is solid on the ground / yet you’re the wind.” He’s speaking of spiritual ecstasy, but I think inspiration is just another form of that. As the poem starts to take shape, before you put the pen to the page or your fingers on the keys, light particularizes around you. You notice how it silvers each of the cat’s whiskers, how it gracefully slides around the corners of the old stove, how it ignites the green in the moss around the pond. The same wind has been blowing all week but suddenly you sense it’s trying to get a word in and the aspen leaves are ready to reply. You know this is not simply your imagination pushing you into anthropomorphic inventions. You’re getting in touch with what’s really out there. Warm-blooded and on the edge, something is shaping itself into the bones and sinews of nouns, the muscles of verbs, as if you the writer were of minor importance, as if you must give yourself up, move aside for this new creature to show itself, for it to come tentatively into the light cast by your mind, your heart, your strange imaginings. The poem steps close to you. It shows its wild face.
— from the Margaret Laurence Lecture, 2013

“What a joy to have a volume of selected poems by this marvellous Canadian poet, storyteller, truth-teller, visionary.”
—Ursula LeGuin, June 3rd, 2007 writing on The Blue Hour of the Day, from The New York Times Book Review

Crozier's poetry is witty, poignant, beautifully plain spoken narrative with startlingly clear moments of revelation, quick, deep Alice Munro like glances into our very nature.  It is like meeting someone with small town manners and common sense as well as big city savvy.
—Michael Dennis, michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca

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In March 2018, Lorna Crozier received the Chen Zi Ang Poetry Periodical International Poet Award in Sui Ning, China. Sui Ning is the birthplace of Chen Zi Ang, a famous Tang poet who rallied for unadorned, plain speaking in poetry. He was the precursor of Tu Fu and Li Po and had a tremendous influence on their work. The award is for a variety of my poems selected from different books and translated into Chinese. They appeared in China’s most prestigious magazine, Beijing’s Poetry Periodical, in 2017.

ReadLocalBC Rob Taylor’s interview with Lorna Crozier about The House the Spirit Builds
INTERVIEW PART ONE
INTERVIEW PART TWO


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The 2018 George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award, BC’s most prestigious literary honour, was presented to Lorna on June 28, 2018 in Vancouver. On this occasion, she was also inducted in the Vancouver Public Library’s Writers Walk of Fame. Read the article here.

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Crozier’s poem “Fear of Snakes” translates to “Paura dei serpenti” in Italian. Writer Davide Brullo translated this and “My Last Erotic Poem” (“La mia ultima poesia erotica”), both of which are posted here on Pangea along with his interview with Crozier. The Italian version appears first: scroll down for the Q&A in English.

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In July 2017, Lorna joined the crew and guests for Leg 7 of the Canada C3 journey. She wrote a poem, “Polar,” after sailing beside a massive iceberg. The poem was set to video and music and can be seen here.

In October 2016, Lorna Crozier was invited to take part in poetry festivals in China . Here are some photos of the trip.
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A trip to Fogo Island for Toque and Canoe resulted in an article about what it's like to visit this magical place. photo: Alex Fradkin/courtesy of Fogo Island Inn
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